Columbia Mall, in Columbia, Maryland. Three dead.
Huh. I used to live just a few blocks from there; went there all the time.
They’re reporting one of the dead had a gun and ammunition, but I’ve not seen any reports about the police shooting anyone, which leads me to believe this was some sort of private dispute, but really that’s just wild speculation on my part.
Or suicide.
I grew up in Columbia; all family are accounted for but not sure about friends.
I’m thinking that it was some kind of targeted attack too. I also believe that CNN, etc. should refrain from routinely doing stories about things like this, because of the risk of copycats.
That mall isn’t too far from me so it feels scarier than usual. My parents actually called me this morning from another state because they were worried. I hadn’t seen news of the shooting before then.
Um…hmmm. Editing at CNN is not good. From the link:
Howard County Police Chief Bill McMahon told reporters that the shooter apparently shot two people before shitting himself in a store on the second floor. The motive was unclear.
ETA: They’ve corrected the error already.
The families of the victims can console themselves with the knowledge that their loved ones died for our Second Amendment rights. :sad:
Nice. :rolleyes:
I look forward to the day when it is no longer true.
It appears to be domestic - that the shooter killed his estranged wife and her boyfriend before turning the gun on himself.
WHY, OH WHY didn’t he kill himself first??? :mad:
Because he was an asshole. Which explains the estranged wife.
The first version was probably just as correct.
Can you put me onto a source? HoCoPo isn’t releasing that information that I can see, though there’s some speculation on a Columbia Facebook page.
Sorry for the double post. The Washington Post says
(It doesn’t say who Fischer is in relation to Johnson, one of the two victims.)
Right, because an uninformed populace is a happy populace.
Yeah, and hey, who really needs to know if their local mall is currently a war zone?
That’s always my thought in situations like this. Any asshole can pull off a murder/suicide…how about you ramp up the difficulty and go for a suicide/murder?
This is a puzzling case at the moment. Police have found no connection between the shooter and the victims so far. Given that the guy shot the two young people and then himself leads one to believe it could have been a murder-suicide due to some kind of domestic issue between the killer and one or both victims, but the police haven’t found a connection yet (at least they aren’t saying publicly at this time). The families of the victims are apparently upset that the media is saying there was a relationship and the police have asked that the speculation stop.
An element of dark humor – the shooter was on the board of “the Serenity Center,” according to CNN.